[From
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+lukecrane/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5]
Archived at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20180909223039/https://plus.google.com/+lukecrane/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5
We've been playing D&D at BWHQ for the past four months. Our group
consists of me plus six players: two ladies, four gentlemen. The
players have a range of experience with D&D: from none at all to
grognardia to having worked on the brand.
We're using the Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert books. Only myself and
one other had played this particular edition previously. And I'd
only played Cook Expert when I was a lad. I still have that
book. Very sturdy, though it has suffered from much abuse at my
hands.
The game began as an experiment with +Thor Olavsrud to understand
how "original" D&D was played. Thus we set out to play as close to
the rules as possible. While this edition is indeed old—published in
1981—it is a far cry from OD&D. It is, by my count, the fifth
edition of D&D (editions being: OD&D, three Holmes editions, then
Moldvay). I chose this edition over the Gygax/Arneson and Holmes
editions because it contains a defined set of procedures that I
could follow, not just for the subsystems, but for the entire
structure of play: character creation, the adventure, parley,
combat, advancement and recovery. I felt I could play this best as
written and thus get closer to how it was intended to be played.
In order to ensure our experience was in line with what the original
designers intended, I made sure we used their published
adventures. Moldvay edition is the genesis of "Basic" D&D. Thus the
B series of modules are ostensibly built for this version of D&D.
We started at the beginning: B1, In Search of the Unknown.
The set up is thin: monsters infest an abandoned secret fortress. I
think we all, players and me as GM, found the geographic design of
this dungeon arbitrary. It was a collection of rooms on a sheet of
paper, not the secret fortress as advertised. I'll admit that I was
finding my feet with the game and thus did a poor job running this
module. But it lacked a compelling narrative or internal logic. The
players duly raided away, but after the third wave of character
deaths, they had a dawning realization that this endeavor was
pointless. They quit Quasqueton after exploring 80% of the dungeon
in three sessions, at the cost of about six deaths: They vowed never
to go back.
And then I discovered that B1 was designed for the Holmes Edition of
D&D and so perhaps that's why it lacked a little of the cohesion of
the later Moldvay edition.
Next we played B2, Keep on the Borderlands. This is a curious
module. It skirts the conceit of Basic D&D— only dungeons, no
wilderness, no town—by giving a map of the keep/town and small
wilderness area. And like B1, this is because B2 was designed for
the Holmes edition, and predates Moldvay's publication by a year.
In B2, the characters sortie out from the eponymous Keep to the
Caves of Chaos. I want to be careful not to spoil this adventure, so
I won't give specifics. Suffice to say, at the Caves they must root
out a deeply entrenched, and rather extensive, infestation of
monsters and servants of Chaos. I think this module's design is
genius. It evokes exactly what this era of D&D is about: exploration
and puzzle-solving. The puzzles are geographical, social, magical
and physical in nature—on a variety of scales, from tiny objects, to
map-wide. Exploration serves to reveal information that serves in
solving the puzzles. The design is simple in execution, but
surprisingly subtle. One solution opens one possibility and closes
the others. When we played, it was easy to make the Caves feel
alive. It feels as if Gygax designed this module and then Moldvay
reedited D&D to evoke the experience of playing Keep on the
Borderlands.
Why is this era of D&D about puzzle-solving and exploration? Because
your characters are fragile and treasure compromises 4/5s of the
experience you earn, whereas fighting monsters earns only 1/5. Thus
if there's a big monster guarding a valuable piece of treasure, the
incentive is to figure out a way to get the treasure without
fighting the monster. Fight only as a last resort; explore first so
you can better solve. This shift in emphasis away from fighting was
frustrating at first, but then profoundly refreshing once we sussed
out the logic.
Having learned this lesson at the cost of another seven deaths, the
group completed B2 in grand style: Their plans were so effective,
their exploration so thorough, that the victorious player characters
suffered not a point of damage in the final confrontation. And I
opposed them with mind-boggling array of villainy!
After their rousing conquest of the Caves of Chaos, we moved on to
B3, Palace of the Silver Princess. I chose this module for their
next adventure out of many possibilities because: 1) it seemed like
something they could tackle without getting shredded 2) it is short
3) it has narrative motivation/cause 4) they're locked in the
dungeon 5) Tom Moldvay shares an author credit. I thought those were
a good set of features, different from the part-time-day-worker
mercenary feel of Keep on the Borderlands.
However, after the gold-standard of Keep, I was sorely disappointed
in this scenario. The logic is thin. The puzzles are poorly
conceived. The traps are simply cruel and don't make too much sense
in the larger ecology of the castle. The map of the castle is pure
nonsense as well. If it is a palace, it's rather dank and
claustrophobic. If you have to get downstairs, you have to go
through the Court Magician's lab. He must love that.
I know some of you will disagree with me on this assessment. And I
know this module has a troubled and storied history, but I hoped in
vain that Moldvay would elevate it the way he elevated the Basic
edition. Alas, he did not.
Regardless of the dungeon's quality, my crack team of adventurers
busted the scenario open with a Charm Person spell in session
2. Much to their credit, and my frustration, while they had the
solution of the adventure in their power, they continued to
explore. Unfortunately, the adventure didn't measure up to their
expectations and their exploration only lead them to worse traps and
more hideous monsters, without granting a better understanding of
the problem they faced.
At one point, they tried to rest upstairs, but were rudely
interrupted multiple times. Their desired eight hour rest period
turned into a 14 hour bout of exhaustion and flight. That broke
them. After that, they went for the goal, and true to form, bashed
through the final encounter with nary a hit point lost.
Despite my feelings about B3, I decided to use it as a platform to
build their world on. Their characters advanced to level 4 and so it
was time to leave the red book and head for the blue: Expert
set. After careful research, I discovered the most excellent module,
B10 Night's Dark Terror. I modified that scenario slightly, placing
Haven (from B3) at the center of its action. I let the group stay at
the Palace to learn new spells and weapon mastery (from the black
Master book). I let them bank their gold there. And I set up
Princess Argenta and Ellis as their patrons. In this newly built
world, constructed of a few patchworks of wilderness, towns and
dungeon locations, they had done good, word had spread, and now
their services were in demand. In fact, I let them choose between
B10 and combined campaign of X1 Isle of Dread and X6 Quagmire. They
boldly took up the Princess's cause in the form of B10, with only
the vaguest promise of reward. I'm proud of them. They did it
because they had a lust for adventure, not for empty promises of
reward.
I'm nervous about the transition to the wilderness style of
adventure, since the beautiful economy of Moldvay's basic rules are
rapidly undermined by the poorly implemented ideas of the Expert
set. However, this module is so beautiful and detailed, I think all
will be well. We already had our first river journey and fight on
the deck of a ship. I think I was more excited about the change of
venue than the players were.
After more than 16 sessions of play, I think this is a magnificent
game. The previous editions have seeds of the hobby, seeds of
greatness in them, but this edition is not only a game with
digestible procedures, but it is a fully realized vision. A new
vision. A vision of a monster-filled world, riddled with dungeons,
ready to be plumbed by desperate heroes. It created a perilous world
with death lurking around every corner in the form of this
dangerous, unforgiving game.
During some of the darker moments of the game, when curses flew and
lives ended, my players turned to me and said, "Don't worry; don't
feel badly. It's not you. It's the game."
What a tremendous thing to say.
I realized at that moment that this group had done something all too
rare in my experiences with roleplaying games. Rather than bending
the game to our predilections, we bent our collective will to the
game. We learned it, and it taught us. It taught us how to play it,
but it also taught us lessons. And though it can be cruel, there is
a savage logic operating underneath it's Erol-Otus-drawn
skin. Something that we could grasp, even if it hurts a little. Once
we divested our modern notions of fantasy—of Dungeons and Dragons,
even—and subjected ourselves to its will, we leveled up. Suddenly,
we were sharing a hobby; we had discovered something new and our
motley crew was better friends for it.
This slim red volume emerged before us as a brilliant piece of game
design that not only changed our world with it's own bright light,
but looking from the vantage of 1981, I can see that this game
changed THE world. This world of dark dungeons and savage encounters
slowly crept out into ours, from hobby shops to basements, to
computer labs and movie screens. And we're all better off for having
adventured in it, even if the game isn't played quite the same
anymore.
